Canadian making Wayne Taylor Racing’s Cadillac fly like a jet
Wayne Taylor Racing, an entry in the prototype division of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, is one of the most successful teams in all of racing. Established in 2007 by former racer Wayne Taylor, in partnership with race driver Max Angelelli, the team has never finished out of the top three in the annual championship.
But whether it’s Wayne Taylor in sports cars, Roger Penske in Indy cars, Rick Hendrick in NASCAR or Christian Horner in F1, you need help getting the job done and the championships won.
I am writing this column today because in the Cadillac display at the Canadian International AutoShow, which wraps up tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, there is a Cadillac racing car, a DPi-V.R, which belongs to Wayne Taylor Racing.
And the guy who makes it go fast, whether it’s to win the pole for the Rolex 24-hour race at Daytona International Speedway in January or for the Weathertech race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park every July (pretty much every July, anyway) is a Canadian from Alliston, Ont., and his name is Brian Pillar.
Now, Pillar does not race the DPi-V.R. The Taylor team leaves that up to drivers Jordan Taylor and Renger van der Zande. Pillar is the team’s technical director and race strategist, and his job is to trim that car out so that it flies like a jet when in the hands of drivers such as van der Zande and Taylor.
So, how did this come about? How did Pillar wind up living in Indianapolis, married to Stacie and father to two children, and be such an important cog in the operation of one of the most successful racing teams in North America?
“I grew up in Alliston — they make Honda Civics there — and went to Banting Memorial High School,” Pillar told me in an interview. “When I graduated, I almost went to university to become an outdoor recreation major. But then I thought I’d try engineering, so I went to Queen’s in Kingston for mechanical engineering.”
In the last two years at Queen’s, he joined the Formula SAE program, where students design a race car from scratch, and that’s when he was bitten by the bug.
“My life has always been about competition,” he said, “and suddenly I had an outlet. And in my sport, you’re not looking for a pat on the back or to be told that you did a good job. In my sport, you either win or you lose.”
In a period of his life he describes as crazy, he and a friend, another engineer, hopped aboard a pickup truck when they graduated and drove to Quebec to find jobs.
“We both started working at a driving school, Basi Motorsport School, near Montreal. Neither one of us could speak French. The school was at the Ste-Eustache race track, out in the middle of nowhere. We paid to work on the race cars, Formula Fords and F2000s, and to teach people how to race-drive.
“My parents thought I was nuts. All the other engineers were graduating and getting jobs. Everybody else was making money and I’m paying to be a mechanic and to teach people how to race. (Having to pay to do this is not unusual; most racing schools operate under this setup.)
“Yes, I got to drive a race or two as part of the bargain, but I wasn’t a very good race driver. So I gave up on that pretty quickly.”
Pillar then moved around from racing job to racing job, working for teams that won championships in the Grand-Am and World Challenge Series before joining Wayne Taylor Racing and moving to Indianapolis, the team’s base, in 2007.
“I went from being the lead engineer, winning championships, to a guy working in the shop,” he said, “So three years in, the lead engineer quit and I told Wayne he should hire someone else, I’m here to learn, and he said, ‘I’m the boss, it’s my company and you’re going to take this and I know you can do it.’ He really pushed me to take on the opportunity and I haven’t looked back.”
Wayne Taylor Racing is always thinking a year ahead, if not further, for sponsorship and driver opportunities as well as team personnel.
“It’s a lot like shooting pool,” he said, “You’re always thinking of the next shot. Three years ago, when we knew the LMP2 cars were coming to America, Wayne went to Cadillac because he knew they wanted to be involved. We worked on how to make this car work for a year and a half. Our race tracks are different than European tracks and we worked hard with Dallara (the chassis manufacturer) to make it work.”
IMSA created a Daytona Prototype International class (hence the designation DPi) that allowed a manufacturer to enter the series, change the bodywork and put their own engine in the car.
“We have a Cadillac V8 in the car and the bodywork is done with the Cadillac styling department. Cadillac went back and forth with Dallara, working together to come up with a car that would perform and have styling cues that represented Cadillac. They did a really good job.”
Pillar says in his sport, you win or you lose — there is no in-between. He enjoys being challenged.
“I’m a huge sports car fan,” he said. “I enjoy open wheel and NASCAR, but I like sports car endurance racing, and my job is so cool because I do all sorts of facets of engineering.
“In the off-season, we do design and improvements to the car or pit equipment or processes and then when the race season starts, I’m busy tuning the race car, and then the race starts and I get to be a race strategist.
“I also like what IMSA is doing where, every four years, it’ll be a new car: year one, I’m learning about the car; year two, I’m really refining the car; year three, I’m getting it down, and, year four, I’m working on the next car. I’m always doing something different.
“Wayne is great, always working to ensure the team will be competitive the next few years. He makes it so I don’t have to worry about money. I just worry about making the car reliable and faster.”
Pillar says he is excited that Roger Penske and Team Penske are back in IMSA sports car racing.
“I want to race against the best and I want to engineer against the best. We want to emulate what Penske does; we want to be where manufacturers will want to come.”